In a concerted effort to address entrenched poverty in San Antonio, Mayor Ron Nirenberg took the stage at the State of the City address to champion the city’s workforce development initiative, Ready to Work. The mayor, riding on the program’s success, asserted that more than 6,500 San Antonians have enrolled, with over 1,200 completing it. Half of these graduates, according to the city’s records, have found employment, as reported by KENS 5.
But it's not all smooth sailing – the program, pitched as a transformative force for the impoverished, has recently been scrutinized for underperforming against initial projections. "It doesn’t go away on its own. Education, workforce development are pathways out of poverty," Nirenberg said, a defense coming on the heels of the San Antonio Express-News highlighting the program’s challenges in meeting key metrics, KSAT added.
The Ready to Work initiative, funded by a $200 million voter-approved sales tax, aims to provide job training and place residents into high-quality, in-demand positions. Yet, despite the lofty goals, the latest figures show only 628 successful job placements out of more than 1,200 graduates – a far cry from the tens of thousands once envisioned.
Amidst the pressure, the mayoral baton looks to change hands, with councilmen Manny Pelaez and John Courage announcing their candidacy for the city's top office in 2025. Pelaez, a critic of Ready to Work but recognizing its critical nature, remarked, "There’s a lot of people in the community who are very worried that we’re not hitting a lot of the numbers that we thought we’d be hitting at this point," in a conversation with KSAT.
Illuminating another facet of the city's future, Nirenberg teased the potential downtown relocation of the San Antonio Spurs, aligning with the University of Texas at San Antonio's announcement to repurpose the Institute of Texan Cultures site. "We want to be engaged in the future of that site, which is an extremely important area of downtown that is being developed," he told reporters, subtly nudging at the possibility without confirming ongoing negotiations.
